02/18/2023
In the beginning, smart teachers who like smart students invented tracking so that the smart kids wouldn’t be slowed down by the dumb kids. Eventually, dumb administrators who don’t like smart kids caught on and banned tracking. So the smart teachers changed the name to honors classes. After George Floyd, the dumb administrators caught on and banned honors classes too. And now the smart parents are fighting back.
To Increase Equity, School Districts Eliminate Honors Classes
Supporters say uniform classes create rigor for all students but critics say cuts hurt faster learners
By Sara Randazzo
Wall Street Journal
Feb. 17, 2023 5:30 am ETCULVER CITY, Calif. — A group of parents stepped to the lectern Tuesday night at a school board meeting in this middle-class, Los Angeles-area city to push back against a racial-equity initiative. The high school, they argued, should reinstate honors English classes that were eliminated because they didn’t enroll enough Black and Latino students.
The district earlier this school year replaced the honors classes at Culver City High School with uniform courses that officials say will ensure students of all races receive an equal, rigorous education.
Culver City is a diverse, moderately upscale municipality north of LAX.
The parental pushback in Culver City mirrors resistance that has taken place in Wisconsin, Rhode Island and elsewhere in California over the last year in response to schools stripping away the honors designation on some high school classes.
…Culver City English teachers presented data at a board meeting last year showing Latino students made up 13% of those in 12th-grade Advanced Placement English, compared with 37% of the student body. Asian students were 34% of the advanced class, compared with 10% of students. Black students represented 14% of AP English, versus 15% of the student body.
Culver City is next to unincorporated View Park-Windsor Hills, the highest income majority black neighborhood in the country, so the local black kids are pretty smart.
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